10 Video Reels Tips To Supercharge Your Social Media

Most speakers are using Reels the wrong way — or not at all. In this episode of the Profitable Speaking Podcast, Brad shares 10 essential tips to help you create short-form videos that actually get seen, spark engagement, and lead to paid opportunities.

From writing powerful hooks to avoiding the common mistakes that kill your views, this is your step-by-step guide to using Reels to grow your speaking business. If you want to stay visible, build trust, and book more gigs, this episode is your blueprint.

300 Headlines That Sell Like Crazy (hooks) book: https://tinyurl.com/4kj6c2br

Transcript

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Welcome to the Profitable Speaking Podcast where we help you build a profitable six figure business from the stage. Here's your host, Mr. Web Marketing, Brad Hauck. Welcome to the Profitable Speaking Podcast where I help speakers just like you build a real business from your message. Today I'm looking at one of the most powerful ways to grow your audience, but not on stage, build trust fast and start more conversations that lead to paid gigs, that is video reels. The truth is, most speakers are posting the wrong kind of content or skipping reels altogether. And if you're not using short form video the right way, you're leaving money and visibility on the table. So in this episode, I'm going to go through 10 things speakers like you need to know to make reels work for you. From grabbing attention in the first three seconds to creating content you can repeat and repurpose without burning out. So over the last couple of months, I've been doing a lot of video and some short form, some long form into YouTube and I'm really enjoying it and I'm starting to build a really nice little following. And one of the things that most people don't realize is in fact you can reach a lot of people building a good quality YouTube channel, for example, but also there's a lot of traffic, a lot of views to be had on social media. So you've got TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, all those places that allow you to post reels or short form video. And one of the realizations I came to understand was that I can actually reach more people through these mediums than I can standing in front of a room. And that really got me thinking about what I was doing and how I was doing it. So I've delved into the short form video quite a bit more and I've been doing a lot of learning and a lot of applying. And that's brought me down to these 10 things that you can do. So let's have a look at some of the things you can do to actually make your reels better and get people to watch it. Because the one thing you do need to understand is the most important metric when it comes to video is watch time. If someone comes to watch your 30 second video and they only watch 15 seconds, the algorithms see that as a failure, basically. Whereas if you can get people to watch your whole 30 seconds, that's seen as a win. And so that content's then promoted more and that goes to all content. If you're producing content that is 10 minutes long and people watch one minute, that affects how much your video is shared by the different social media tools. It is going to be one of the most important measurements going forward. So start to think very seriously about how you get people to stay the end. It doesn't matter whether Your video is 30 seconds, 3 minutes, or 3 hours. The key is keeping people engaged. So let's have a look at these. Number one, you need to lead with a strong hook. It is super important that you use your opening line in a powerful way. You need to use clarity, context, and curiosity to grab attention fast. Don't waste time introducing yourself. People don't care. Tell them what they're going to get out of the video. So hooks are really powerful, and you've only got to do a quick search online for hook formulas, and you'll find a ton of those. It's really important you use a hook because what you're doing is basically like phishing is setting the hook in the fish. You're saying something that gets people interested, and then when they're interested, they'll stay to find out the answer. If you go straight into the answer, that's going to cost you the rest of your watch time. So think very carefully about that. You're setting the hook and then you're reeling them in, and finally you pull them on shore using the fishing analogy. And so you need to make sure that you follow all of those steps, which I'll cover a bit more further. But certainly you need to have that strong hook. If you don't catch people in the first seconds that they see your video, they're gone. Number two, you need to cut the lulls. It is so important that you cut out all of the pauses, the fillers, or the long intros. Every second must drive the story forward, and you've got to learn to edit ruthlessly. And this is something that speakers seem to have a hard time doing because they feel like everything they say is important. It's not. You need to cut that video back until it is really tight. No space for breathing, no space for thinking. It's got to be, bam, done. So think about cutting the lulls. Now, if you use a tool like Descript, it can actually go through. And based on what you tell it, it can cut every pause longer than 0.5 seconds down to 0 seconds or 3 seconds down to 1 second. It's nice and easy to do with the editing tools we have available to us these days, but you gotta make sure you do it. And it is a learned thing. You've gotta go and practice cutting it back until you get comfortable with cutting those videos really tight. If you have an editor working for you, you've got to get them to do the same. You really want it to be tight for a reel. It cannot be. It cannot be long winded. Make sure that you add subtitles, text or visual cues to keep the viewer engaged. And think of every second as a battle for attention. It's great to have the information coming out of your mouth, but a lot of people don't turn the sound on, so make sure that you have. But a lot of people don't turn the sound on, so make sure you have subtitles turned on. You don't have to use them all the way through. You can if you want to, but you can use them to catch attention at the start and to cover the most important point at the end. So think about how you're using them. It's worth looking at what people are doing. Go and have a look at the reels that get you in and try and understand the pattern, how they're editing. But first of all, get rid of all that dead time. Deliver a payoff at the end. Never give away your results too early. Tease, build, deliver in the last five seconds. That payoff could be a punchline, a lesson, or a reaction to something, but you never give it away in the middle. I've seen this, I've done this so many times, where you go into the video and you put the hook in and then you tell them the answer straight away. What happens when they get the answer? They don't watch the rest of the video. So you need to make sure that when you're writing your scripts, when you're planning your reels, that the answer is at the end. And that is a different way of speaking. That is a different way of thinking because it's not easy to do that. We normally ask the question, then we give the answer. We ask the question, we give them more information, then we tell them how to solve the problem. And I found that this is quite easy to do if you train an AI tool to help you. So you give it the formula, the framework, and then it can write it. But think about that hook and at the end, the answer and then something in the middle to keep people to stick around, focus on being relatable. You need to speak to problems your audience already has. You can't talk about things they might have happen. Remember, prevention, not cure, doesn't sell. We sell cures, not prevention. People don't buy prevention. And if they do, it's because they're very scared. In other words, they're already on the way looking for a cure to a problem that they see is going to definitely happen. The more they see themselves in your video, the more likely they are to stick around and share it. So being relatable is really important. Now, whether you're in the video, whether you're talking over the top of pictures, whether you're using other video, B roll or whatever, make sure that it relates to the audience that you're talking to. One of the ways you can do that is use things like this is for anyone who's ever. Which is a great way to hook people in. But then you're talking to someone and you're telling them about a specific problem that they relate to. So many things you can do to be relatable. Obviously we spend a lot of time doing that on stage. But when it comes to reels, you need to keep it relatable within a very short time frame. Use repeatable formats. This is really important. As I said, when you're developing reels, you have to have a framework that you use. Don't reinvent the wheel. You need to find a style that works for you. So questions and answers, myth busting behind the scenes, and keep doing variations of that. Everybody has a style that kind of fits them. For me, it's definitely the kind of questions and answers, myth busting. Did you realize that if you're doing this, you know this is going to happen? That works for me because I'm in that sort of world where teaching is a large part of what I do. You need to look at what you've done in the past, go back through any reels or videos that you've done and see what actually got a good audience, what got shared, what worked, and start to think about what it is that you do. But then apply the framework for writing reels to what it is you do. Remember, just because you've done it this way doesn't mean you don't have to have the hook and the answer at the end. That's really important. I cannot stress how important this is because I've tested it. It makes a big difference. Think series when you're shooting reels rather than one offs. And one of the great things is that you can pre plan a whole series of videos. Then create your scripts using the framework and then record them all at once and chunk them up and edit them all at one time. So you can do a series of 10, a series of 20. I generally will shoot 10 reels in a row. Edit them, save them, and then post them day by day. Number six, post with purpose. Make sure that your bio, your username and your profile picture align with your speaking niche. These are mini trust signals for any new visitors that find your reels and then go to your profile to suss you out. You're not just a speaker, you're an expert with some mission in mind. So you want them to be able to see that. Remember, we're not introducing ourselves in the start of the video, so they don't really know who it is. It's someone who's popped up on their screen, said something interesting and they've gone, oh, that's great. I wonder who this person is? And then they click the profile link to go and see who you are. So make sure that you have that little bit of purpose in how your bio is written. In other words, has a call to action, not just a background information about yourself. Make sure your links are there. If there's links in, like Instagram and Facebook, make sure that your profile picture is up to date or it fits with what you want people to understand about yourself. Everything that you do on social media is looked at and everything is a step in your funnel. Because remember, we're not just doing these videos for fun, we're doing them for a reason. We're educating people to get people to take an action. That action might be to join our social media group, or it might be to buy our product, or it might be to book us to go on stage. Whatever it is, there is a purpose. So everything you do is part of that funnel. Number seven, layer your hooks. Vocal plus text plus caption. Very important. Use all three hook types together. Say your hooks out loud, write it on the screen, and use captions to restate or tease the payoff. This is again, one of those things about editing. And now I do my own editing because I enjoy doing it. That said, I wouldn't think twice about paying someone to do it. You need to have them. So when the screen comes up, you hear someone saying something like, did you realize that this could happen to you? And then on the screen it says that. So they see the words. They see you and they hear the words as well. And then you have your captions that continue on from there. Make sure you use those three things, the hook out loud, putting it on the screen and using it as a caption to restate or tease what it is that you're saying. Because 90% of people are going to read faster than they hear. So they're going to read the hook, hear the hook, and then continue on into the video. So just think about again, how you layer things. Number 8. Keep it simple and clear. Don't over explain. When you go into too much detail, you lose your viewers. So keep it really short, keep it really tight. And that means editing your scripts up before you do them. Now, how you record them is up to you. Some people do their videos while they're walking. They're pretty practiced. I can't walk and talk at the same time. Some people shoot outdoors, some people shoot indoors, some use a studio. It doesn't really matter. In the end, you're going to be framed up really tight. Because we're talking about vertical video here. So there's not a lot going on in the background. It's very tight to your shoulders. I use an auto cue, which I quite enjoy. It allows me to read the scripts that I've written. It doesn't mean I can't speak off the top of my head. But when I'm doing reels, they're quite tight. And I really want to keep my message on exactly what I have to say rather than drifting off, which I will do. I know, because that's what speakers do. We want to go into more detail. And I don't want to go into more detail with a reel. So remember that your viewers scroll fast. Remember that your viewers scroll fast. They're gonna flick from video to video. You know how it goes. You've done it yourself. So one idea per video, one clear message. Say it fast and visually support it through captions, overlays. B roll. Okay, B roll for anyone doesn't know what a B roll is. The video that you use over the top of your talking. So you might be saying something and they see your face, and. And then you say something like. And then that caused that crash. And you use B roll of a car hitting a wall. That B roll basically illustrates the point that you're making. We see it all the time, but many people just don't understand. That's what B roll is. But there you go. Number nine. Write five hook options for every video before you record. Brainstorm five ways to say the same hook and then test variations by reading them out aloud to see what resonates. I find this is a good one because some hooks are better than others. And even if you're using the same formula for those hooks, it can sound different depending on which words you put in which order. Create a couple of versions. Remember, the hook is to get people to stop. Remember that the hook is to get people stocked and then they listen the information in the middle and they catch the answer, the result of the hook at the end. When you use templates for hooks like you won't believe what happened when I or 3 mistakes speakers make before every event, you get people to stop for a second. Now, the key here is it's that wondering what you're going to say next that keeps people watching the video. And I can't reiterate this enough, and I know I've said this so many times, but the hook is so important when it comes to reels. It might not be as important in long video, but it really matters when we're talking about reels. So writing a whole range of hooks gives you a few choices. After a while you'll find five or six that work really well for you. But try a range of them. And as I've said, you only have to do a search online to find lists of hooks that you can try. They've been around forever. We used to call them headlines, now we call them hooks for videos. But on paper they were headlines. And there is books written about this, about the best headlines that you can use. For example, one of my favorites, the classic they all laughed when I sat down at the piano. But when I started to play, and that was a very famous ad that sold piano courses, it's a great formula. They all laughed when I did something, but then when I started to something. And you'll find these everywhere. Actually, I have a list, a PDF that I created a few years ago of 300 different hooks. So I'll put that in the links in the show notes number 10. Practice until it feels natural. As a speaker, this shouldn't be any surprise to you. Your first 10 to 20 videos are going to feel clunky. Post them anyway. Reels improve with volume and feedback. And your goal is the progress not to get them perfect first time. So the more you do, the better they get. And one of the really good ways of finding out how good they are is how many views they're getting. If you're finding you're not getting lots of views, then there's something wrong. It should increase the views as you get better, because as your hooks get better, people will stay. Your watch time gets longer. That then triggers the algorithm and so on and so forth. The other side to it is making sure that you do actually put a good description and use your hashtags when you post and keep your hashtags consistent. One of the biggest problems that I discovered that people make is that they use random hashtags. If you're talking about golf, use hashtags about golf only. If you're talking about marketing, use marketing hashtags. Make sure they're niched down and all your videos are using similar hashtag. It's no different to using SEO on a website where you focus everything around a keyword phrase or a keyword. The same thing applies with reels. In fact, it's even more important when it comes to video reels. So yeah, practice them. Run through them a few times until you feel natural. Once you start to do a few and you batch them, you'll find you start to get more fluid. And especially if you're using an auto cue, it obviously makes it easier. The key is to make sure that the auto cue is flowing smoothly. If it's not, pause, take a break, and cut the space out when you edit. That's the great thing about using AI editors is that they can automatically cut that space out or it's really obvious in the transcript when you edit the text. So there you have it. 10 Ways to Make your reels actually work for your speaking business. Now, whether you're brand new or just inconsistent, the key is to start simple and leading with strong hooks, focusing on content that speaks directly to your audience problems and keeping the answer to solving the problem to the very end. We're going for that watch time. Remember, it's not necessarily about going viral, it's about being visible to the right people. And when your reels do that, they don't just entertain people, they help you get booked. Thanks again for joining me on the Profitable Speaking Podcast. If you got value from this episode, hit subscribe and share it with other speakers. And leave a quick review because that really helps us grow the show. And don't forget to grab a copy of my latest book on Amazon, AI powered use AI to automate and accelerate your business in 90 days. It's packed with tools to help you grow your speaking business faster and turn your speaking into an even bigger business. I'll catch you in the next episode. 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